Current solutions for transferring content from the web to a cell phone while browsing the web focus on extending the capabilities of currently existing web browsers through plug-in technologies or by requiring web sites to edit the source code of their web pages. In one current solution, depicted in FIG. 1, a web browser plug-in is downloaded and installed into a user's web browser. The user can then activate a console window 105 on the left side of the browser and drag and drop picture files on a visited web page into a staging area 110 in the console window. Once a file has been dragged into the staging area 110, the user can instruct the plug-in to transmit the file to the user's cell phone by pressing the “Send” button 115. The plug-in then utilizes one of several known delivery mechanisms as selected by the user (i.e., WAP Push, MMS Notification, SMS or MMS) to send a message to the user's cell phone. Once the message arrives at the user's phone, the user can view the message on the phone, retrieve the file (e.g., via a WAP page) and view and/or save it to his cell phone.
A similar solution is depicted in FIG. 2. A web browser plug-in is also downloaded and installed in the solution of FIG. 2; however, this plug-in provides a menu option 205 rather than a console window as provided in FIG. 1. When a user visits a web page and right-clicks his mouse on an image, the context menu 210 appears with the menu option 205 to send the image to the phone. If the user selects menu option 205, a new web page 215 originating from the solution's own web server appears and requests the user to enter his cell phone number 220. Once the user enters his cell phone number, he can press the “Send” button 225 which causes an SMS message to be sent from to the user's cell phone. The SMS message contains a link to a WAP page where the image can be viewed and/or saved to the cell phone.
An alternative solution is depicted in FIG. 3 which provides web sites a method to enable visitors to send photos from the web site to their cell phones. By embedding a small segment of JavaScript code 305 into the pages of the web site, the web site enables visitors to Alt-Click 310 on an image embedded in a web page to transfer a copy of the photo to the visitors' cell phone. Upon performing an Alt-Click on an image, a new web page 315 originating from the solution's own servers appears and requests the visitor to enter his cell phone number 320. Once the visitor enters his cell phone number, he can press the “Send SMS” link 325 which causes an SMS message to be sent to the user's cell phone. Similar to FIGS. 1 and 2, the SMS message contains a link to a WAP page where the image can be viewed and/or saved to the cell phone.
While the foregoing solutions provide a simple and easy method for web visitors to move multimedia content from the web to their phones, they have certain limitations that make them more difficult to achieve widespread adoption. For example, plug-in solutions similar to those depicted in FIG. 1 and FIG. 2 utilize a cumbersome download and installation process that often requires the closing of all web browsers and the rebooting of the user's personal computer. Because different web browsers such as Internet Explorer and Firefox offer different APIs, different plug-ins are needed to support different web browsers thereby increasing development and maintenance costs. Furthermore, the plug-ins themselves may need to be upgraded (i.e., subsequent downloads and installations) in order to extend and enhance the offered services. Embedded JavaScript solutions similar to FIG. 3 eliminate the disadvantages of the plug-in solutions, but remain cumbersome because they require web sites to edit the source code of their web pages. What is needed is a hosted solution that provides the user conveniences of plug-in solutions without the cumbersome installation processes or upgrade issues and without the requirement of requesting each web site to incorporate code into their own web pages to enable such functionality.